


Reclamation

by panda_shi, sub_textual



Category: Naruto
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, M/M, Rough Kissing, Rough Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:16:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4651938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panda_shi/pseuds/panda_shi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sub_textual/pseuds/sub_textual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ANBU takes its toll on Kakashi and Iruka, who find themselves thrown together in the most unexpected of ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Kakashi is written by sub_textual. Iruka is written by panda_shi. All editing and formatting done by sub_textual.

Summer in Konoha goes on forever, daylight cutting like a blade through the sky. Nights are shorter and feel less like night, more like an extended dusk -- the shadows losing the sharpness of their inky recesses, softening to velvet.  Until you're not sure where something ends and another begins. It is like this: the sky stretches wide and satiny above, stars singing in their orbits, so close sometimes if you close your eyes and reach out you might just be able to grab them and hold on. Or so they say. Summer has a way of bringing out the romantic in even the most cynical of unbelievers.

Maybe that is why the Hokage decided summer was the perfect time to try out this new system for unattached shinobi who are either too fucked up or too jaded to attempt forming emotional attachments.

Kakashi just so happens to have the privilege of being exceptionally fucked up and even more jaded -- so fucked up, in fact, that he hasn't been on active duty in a year. His responsibilities have been narrowed into the smallness of the world of the mission desk, with the caveat that should he be deemed stable (what a hilarious thought, really -- a stable shinobi is like that thing called love: it doesn't exist, or so Kakashi thinks) -- he would be allowed to return.

Apparently one of these strange conditions of "being stable" requires him to take part of the new pilot program for the unattached shinobi which really is nothing more than a blind date service.

So here he is, a hand in his pocket, looking up at the brightly lit placard of the bar that he's been sent to, courtesy of the red ribbon scroll that he's holding, hoping that his "date" would have left by now, seeing as he's an hour late.

Unfortunately for Kakashi, Iruka has not left the bar, has not risen from his seat by the bar where beside his half empty cup of chilled (and quite good) sake, sits a red ribbon scroll. It's like any command he receives in the past year, or what feels like ten years. It's just a command, plain and simple, to go and take part of a program that is meant to ensure their strength and protection from themselves and if there is anything Iruka has gotten so good at doing in the past year (or what feels like ten), it's listening to orders. Obeying commands without question, doing what he's been told to do for the greater good and service of the village.

(Not that you wouldn't have listened before but it was different back then, wasn't it? Back then, you placed value in human lives far too much when right now, you are practically uncaring and too mute about a lot of things you shouldn't be.)

So if Tsunade says go on a fucking blind date, Iruka will go on a fucking blind date.

He orders another sake, one hour gone by since his arrival, dressed down in jeans, standard shinobi sandals and a dark turtleneck, also common amongst their own people, ponytail and forehead protector in place. A date; an informal, social or romantic engagement. Iruka thinks it's just full of shit and he would much rather be at home and read a new book with the company of his pet cat.

Hopefully, his date forgot. But then again, Iruka is obeying a command here. He can't exactly just get up and fucking leave.

He waves the barman over and asks for another drink, sighing and rubbing his temple.

Once upon a time, the story would begin.

Once upon a time, two people met and fell in love. And in the middle, nothing spectacular happened. They lived, they loved, they fought and fucked, and maybe at one point, they started a family and lived in a house with a white picket fence and a dog. They grew old together and sat on rocking chairs counting the stars with green tea and dango, longing for dreams that never did come true. But they were happy together, or so the story might go.

What gets left out: eventually they die, and are forgotten. All stories have an end, even the most beautiful ones. The ones that are so well written the words alone are enough to bring tears to the eyes. Not at all like what Kakashi carries around in his back pocket -- well read and torn at the edges.

The only thing they have in common is a beginning and an end. And it's the ending that makes him wonder just why he's even bothering to listen to this particular command, walking into the bar and scanning it for a scroll with a red ribbon.

The logic is simple: all things have an end, so therefore it is pointless and a waste of time to even begin.

And yet, here he is, taking far too much time to finally make his way over to the bar, setting his scroll down next to the other's, without even bothering to say hello. 

"Whiskey, neat," Kakashi says to the barkeep, because he certainly is going to need something strong. It's only then that he directs a look to his right, to the shinobi he was paired with. And well. What a surprise, really.  Kakashi raises an eyebrow. 

 "You're late." Iruka states this as simply as he is capable of managing, with impeccably measured patience that not even during his days at the academy had he been able to have this much control over the fact that he just wants to pull his fist back and perhaps just take Kakashi's other good eye with a punch. Maybe that way, Kakashi can put around Konoha the way Tonbo does; both eyes covered.

For a story to have an end, it needs to have a beginning.

This is Iruka's beginning.

 He starts it by pressing down the button to a timer in his head, counting the minutes that would end in exactly one hour. One hour later and not earlier, only then can Iruka say he has done his job well. Still, Iruka is annoyed, Iruka is irritated, he doesn't like this anymore than he's sure Kakashi doesn't like his new job. What a joke. 

"You must have been swamped with papers." Iruka just keeps the smile and his game-date-face on. He should behave himself and not try to be passive aggressive. But then again, maybe being passive aggressive about things might just help time flow faster; Iruka drains the contents of his cup. He has lost count on how many cups he's had and it's been an hour. He shouldn't drink more, he shouldn't risk it further. So he stops drinking.

"No," Kakashi admits a little too easily, as he looks down at the scrolls, then back up at Iruka, arching his eye into the most perfect crescent. "You see, there was this little old lady who was crossing the road with quite the bag of groceries. Of course, it is quite rude to disrespect your elders, so I had to walk her home. And then I accidentally got lost on the road of life~"   

It's almost as though he wants to irritate Iruka enough, so that they can chalk this little meeting up to a disastrous failure and Tsunade will know better than to ever send Kakashi out on one of these things again.

"You're so full of shit, it's so hard to be attracted to you right now." Iruka says this as bluntly as he can manage, after sitting through the painful chore of listening to that garbage. Really, he has students who are five who can come up with a better excuse. Iruka resists the urge to roll his eyes -- now, now, that's not how one should behave on a date. This ridiculous date.

Maybe Kakashi will get bored and just leave and that way, technically, it wouldn't be his own fault because he didn't leave but his date did. Iruka hopes for the latter. If only because he really, really would much rather spend time with cat than this. Besides, it's not like Kakashi wants to be here too. He took an hour to arrive for goodness fucking sake. "Please keep silent at once."

"Mm, I suppose I could do that, but then it wouldn't be a date," Kakashi says, far too lightly, as he reaches out for the newly delivered drink, which he pulls towards him, a thumb running over the curve of the glass. Anything to take the edge off, to make it fade like shadows at summertime.  "Though I don't suppose you want to be here either," he continues as he lifts up his glass, elbows propped on the bar counter. "You can escape if you'd like. I'm not exactly very good at this kind of thing."

He nudges one of the scrolls with a finger to emphasize what he means by  _this kind of thing._

"Or I can actually put effort in making this work. I have about a good hour to spend in your company after all," Iruka counters, with a smile so bright it's almost incandescent, perfect. Surreal in its perfection. "Here, I'll start. Hello! I'm Umino Iruka, I just turned twenty-six and I like ramen and onsens. What about you?" He tilts his head as he regards his companion and his drink while his other hand makes a quick gesture for his glass to be filled. So much for not drinking anymore. He's going to need more of those if he wants to even make it through this particular one hours. Kakashi is right though, he can just go and leave an forget about it. At the same time though, he's been taught well that he can't even make himself… disobey. 

So he still has a name, Kakashi idly thinks. Or is capable of naming himself.

Kakashi remembers a time when he'd almost forgotten he had a name. When the days were darker than night, and night was black as pitch. Those times, even his face was not a face. It was something else  entirely, and he was not a person, not a living thing that had interests other than the mission. He couldn't remember how long it took for ANBU to strip him down till he was convinced he was not even a person. Sometimes he's still not sure if he is or not. If he can call what he has a life.

But here Iruka is, smiling at him. It's almost impressive. 

"My name is Hatake Kakashi. I don't particularly care to tell you my likes or dislikes. I have many hobbies," he deadpans as he knocks back his drink.

Iruka actually laughs. Loud and stupidly amused because once upon a time, years ago, when the only stress he had drowned in had been the noise in the academy, the constant need to correct learning hands and listening to young voices, when he had been doing the exact same thing Kakashi is currently saddled with and actually didn't mind it, actually liked it. Once upon a time, there had been a small boy who had come to him in all his excitement and disappointment, over a bowl of steaming ramen and said the exact same thing. Verbatim.

 Nostalgic, isn't it? Feels so far away that it's almost unreal, Iruka thinks, those memories.

 "Okay. Okay. Then, allow me to skip to the last part of the date, then, if you don't mind~" Iruka clears his throat and then:  "You want to fuck?"

 Kakashi coughs, surprised at the bluntness of the question, but really, maybe he shouldn't be. It's a little too clean and cut, too business-like. Too familiar in its distance, its impersonality. And strangely, far more comfortable.

 He chuckles softly as he sets the empty glass down, directing a look over Iruka, dragging his eye over the man's features -- soft brown eyes, the edges grown sharper than they had been when Iruka was still young and hopeful and stood yelling at Kakashi in a room full of jounin, when something like hope still lit up his eyes and swam through his words. In their distance is a glimmer of it, or maybe its memory. Kakashi had seen Iruka smile before he was drafted -- dimpling his cheeks and lighting up his eyes. Those eyes are duller now. Darker with knowledge, with what comes at night.

But even still, he's still quite attractive.

And it isn't like Kakashi is a stranger to that darkness.  "Well… I suppose that would be more exciting," he says. 

"Your place or mine?" It is impersonal, how Iruka asks and tips the contents of his glass, all the while letting his gaze roam over Kakashi's slouched physique. Broader shoulders, longer limps, tensile strength in the cords of his muscle that shifts with the lazy posture that is still guarded and leaves no opening. Iruka's eyes drinks in the sight of a broad chest, of abs that folds under the material of the vest and jounin shirt, down to Kakashi's thigh then finally back up to his masked face. 

Iruka asks himself if he would want to sleep with this man, if this hadn't been asked to go on this 'date'. And like always, he finds himself unable to answer his own question. He wonders if it's because he has forgotten how. And he has succeeded in becoming what ANBU demands ANBU to be. But that question is a bit pointless. So Iruka hops on to the more important question. "Do you have lube on you?"

"My, Iruka-san," Kakashi drawls, leaning a bit closer towards Iruka.  "I know you're excited, but I wasn't aware you were so excited you wanted to fuck right here." It's almost as though he's teasing, with how lightly he delivered the line.

"Don't be shameless!" Iruka's face practically lights up in red at the idea of even fucking on the bar counter; oh but wouldn't that be exciting? "It hasn't been more than five minutes! Don't flatter yourself and answer the question." 

Kakashi chuckles lightly, a hand casually dropping under the counter to give Iruka's knee a somewhat reassuring squeeze.  "Don't worry, I'm well prepared for any situation."

Iruka's eyes narrow. "Even on a first date. I'm impressed." A hand pushes Kakashi's away from his knee, before Iruka leaves a few bills on the counter, well enough to cover both their drinks if only because he wants this date to wrap up. "My place is about five blocks away from here. Are you coming, Kakashi-senpai~?" Iruka gives Kakashi a smile, lips curving upwards, except his eyes don't crinkle and scrunch up the way they always do. They're wide open and pinning Kakashi with a look that says, just say yes or no and do us both a favor. 

It’s not the look, but the glimmer. The dullness of an edge scraped raw and hot. This is what catches Kakashi’s attention -- what Iruka tries to hide behind an unaffected look that’s meant to be as impersonal as it is indifferent, a coating of soot on burning coal. The outside is all black and charred. They say it’s only the outside the matters. The outside that they see. The outside that is not really an outside because even that becomes another underneath, another something that disappears behind a face that is not his.

And maybe it’s the disappearing that’s making him burn slow, that’s slowly grinding out the light from his eyes and the hope from his voice -- hope that should not be there at all when you are just numbers without a face or a voice, when your body is not one you can call your own, and your name has been replaced with a series of numbers and a tattoo as red as the blood that runs from the throats and hearts of the men and women and families whose lives you put out.

 It’s remarkable Iruka has lasted this long but still has something inside that burns.

 Kakashi studies him long and hard, then rises from the stool, hands in his pockets, shoulders carelessly slouched.

"Let’s go," he says, and follows Iruka home. 

 

*

 

To be able to claim that something inside still burns is to be able to have fuel around you that will keep the fire alive, even if that fire burns like the chills of ice that seeps through skin in the coldest winter. But here, inside the small apartment that is barely a home but a shadow of what it had been once, there is nothing here that can act as an anchor, a whisper or a reminder that hope exists. That it's okay to hope, that you still feel, that you still have that thing inside you that they had tried so hard to erase.

Like the white washed walls that had been repainted about two years ago. So white, so spartan, so plain and cold. Like the shelves that had been emptied, no longer cluttered with books and little trinkets from academy students. Like the coffee-table that once housed old china that belonged to his mother all those years ago, and that little paper mache model that one student made for a birthday. Or that entire wall that had pictures and memorabilia from students throughout the years, that one big entire colorful wall. Or the checkered covering of the couch and that thick woolen blanket with the leaf prints on it, gone; in its place is a plain printless couch and blanket, impersonal.

 Like how Iruka hangs the keys on the hook by the doorway. Careless, distant, like everything else in the apartment; a memory of what had been, the vague difference in the wood where something heavy once stood with the weight of a heart that had too much hope and dreams that shinobi aren't supposed to have. It's all just a distant thing anyway.

 Just a distant thing. Like how Iruka turns to look over his shoulder to glance at Kakashi, one of the smaller lights on and how he reaches over with a hand coming to rest against the man's neck, fingers spreading against the soft cloth of his uniform and against the coarse strands of silver hair.

"Forty-five minutes good enough for you?" Like the rest of him and the rest of the apartment, this exchange is also a distant thing. Something that needs to be done, accomplished, set aside and labeled as assignment complete. This is what the system has taught him, has beaten in to him. It has taught him to be fearless, to walk up to his target and grab it by the neck without blinking, to execute a command like how it should be done, without the soul, without the heart, without consideration -- or die trying.

Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes, Iruka will falter, like how the tiny bend of his pinky finger will tremble for a second. Just for a second, before it stills again and Iruka tilts his head to the side, leaning close and inhaling the scent of grassland and meadows in summer, of open woodlands and cool mint. And in that moment, just that one second, he thinks it’s okay to maybe - just _maybe_ \- appreciate it for what it is. Acknowledge it for what it is.

This is Hatake Kakashi. This is a person.

Except he’s just another part in a command chain.

And Iruka’s just following orders.

It means nothing, because his body is not his own, so he places distance between them and tries to tell himself it doesn’t matter that he’s about to let a man who might as well be a stranger possess him like he’s some kind of whore.

Kakashi levels Iruka with a hard look, dropping an eye down to the hand against his chest and flicking back up to meet a gaze that’s trying too hard at playing impassive.

And then, with an eyebrow raised, he simply says, "I’m pretty sure your mission isn’t for you to be a whore."

It's almost vicious and wrong, how Iruka's stomach clenches so tight and twists like a blade in his gut that for a moment, he almost thinks it's the alcohol. He makes himself think it's the alcohol when he resists the urge to just shove this jounin against the door, push him back and hurt him for that insult. Rip him apart, punch him in the face, make him bleed and demand that he take it back because _I am not a goddamn whore, how dare you refer to me in that way!_

 (You aren't supposed to be reacting to that, you realize? You aren't supposed to feel insulted.)

 Except Iruka simply takes it in stride, the twitch in his pinky finger present again before he just smiles. Smiling comes easier, Iruka realizes during the long months that feels and stretches like a lifetime.

 "Ah…" Iruka's hand flattens on Kakashi's chest, moves up to cup one side of his face, thumb caressing the curve of a cheekbone, slow, languid, a lazy lover's touch. "I see now… that can be arranged…"

 "I’m not interested in that," Kakashi says quite bluntly, a hand coming up to curl around Iruka’s wrist, pulling it away from his cheek. And in a swift, sudden movement, he slams Iruka against the opposing wall, body closing in tightly against him, one hand coming up to splay against his head on the wall, a knee neatly parting Iruka’s thighs, pressing against his clothed cock.  "If I wanted to fuck a whore, I would’ve paid for one." His eye narrows slightly as he looks down at Iruka over the edge of his mask with something like a challenge, a dare in his gaze as his other hand comes up to grip Iruka by the chin, jerking it up. 

But Iruka doesn't exactly meet the challenge. Not when he's passive towards it, simply looking up at Kakashi, feeling the warmth of his skin between the walls of their clothing.

There is a moment however, where the desire to push and call Kakashi a disgusting person, call him out on his lack of shame and where he gets the balls to refer and treat him this way. To shove him back and tell him to get the fuck out of his home. _Just get out! Get out, I don't fucking need this right now!_

Iruka says nothing, does nothing even if his heart starts to race under his rib cage and his chin remains prisoner in Kakashi's strong grip.

"Then why are you here?" is what leaves Iruka's mouth instead. A genuine question, perhaps just laced with enough curiosity that makes his heart race bang against his ribcage, make the blood race in his veins in excitement, morbid curiosity. These little things that always lead to making him feel, when he's not supposed to be.

For a long moment, the air trembles between them as Kakashi just  _looks_ at Iruka in a way that makes something inside of the chuunin shake.

"You asked," Kakashi says softly.

Iruka cant stop the hot shudder that goes down his back when Kakashi's fingers brush down the curve of his neck in a smooth stroke. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi is written by sub_textual. Iruka is written by panda_shi. All editing and formatting by sub_textual.

_You asked._

It's just an answer, two words that aren't supposed to mean anything.

Except they mean too much. You asked, Kakashi says. Asked.

People like Iruka - people like them - aren't supposed to ask, aren't supposed to know how to ask. And even back then, when he was allowed to feel, when he knew and had an idea of who he was, he never did ask for anything. But here, Kakashi is saying, you asked. Here, somebody is _listening_. Listening to him.

Iruka's eyes widen a fraction, surprised and with it the color rises to his cheeks, embarrassed, ashamed, or maybe just genuinely shy. Or angry. Irritated that two words make his heart squeeze and his breath catch in his throat. Kakashi isn't supposed to be listening to what he asks for.

Iruka doesn't dare say anything, doesn't dare prolong the stare that falters and shakes like his knees and fingers when he grabs Kakashi by the head, grips him hard by his hair and crushes their mouths together, tasting fabric and whisky and mint in his mouth.

Kakashi kisses Iruka back through his mask, the hand at the top of his vest circling around to the back of his neck, and he drags him closer, crushing his mouth harder against Iruka’s through the thin fabric, tongue lapping out to slick the material wet as he presses his thigh with focused intent against him.

This feels like need, to him. The kind that doesn’t easily show itself.  

It lingers in the shadows in exile.  Like a story that has never been told if only because no one is listening. Or maybe it’s just that it isn’t meant to be heard, a secret in the dark like the whispered hush of bodies moving through the forest at midnight. Only the trees know they were ever there at all, but it’s the memory of how they felt that imprints deeper in the bark than the knowledge of a presence that never should have been.

But Kakashi knows how to listen to the silence, knows what its absence means. Remembered what it was like to have needed with a kind of intensity so desperate, so agonizing, you don’t even know it’s need until it splits you apart with your body pressed to the ground listening to the roar of the earth with a mouth full of blood, something vicious and hot like the blade of a knife twisting so violently inside it’s impossible to deny its existence. Impossible to swallow it down, the suddenness of feeling, of that which you are not allowed to have -- so much want you did not know you were still capable of possessing, when desire is a privilege as rare as the feel of the sun on a face with no mask.

It’s easy to forget, to be subsumed by the blood on your hands, that need.

If only because to survive, you must bury it, pretend it doesn’t exist.

And that is the problem with need -- when it's been denied for so long, when one had been told that you're not allowed to feel or need anything, just do what you're told, the moment an outlet presents itself, the moment a crack appears in that perfected globe of glass that reflects back back so much and holds a million unreachable lattices within, it will keep spreading.

One crack, thinner than a hairline. One act of affection or that thing they say that kills you, that thing that they call love and emotion.

Humans are like granite, all sharp and smooth, sturdy and capable of withstanding rough treatment, easily adaptable in their growth and shape according to the space around them. But they are not invincible. Some, more than others, are like crystals that all it needs is one solid tap and it'll get damaged, won't look perfect and clear anymore, because damaged things don't feel, they do not break a kiss that feels like a fresh gulp of grateful air when one's been suffocating for so long.

Iruka thinks he's not damaged; he's _fine_.

Even when fingers reach up, rough in their caress, to push the hitai-ate off Kakashi's forehead, which clatters to the ground with a loud and unwanted resonating clang, his own following shortly after. Iruka thinks he's just doing what he's supposed to be doing, exercising passion because he is not a whore, and Kakashi, his supposed date, doesn't want one either. The neediness of those fingers grip the mask and wrenching it off that face, severing gossamer strands that connect the both of them, only to crush their mouths together and lap at the tongue that Iruka chases after, one arm going around the broader shoulders. He tells himself this is not because his own pristine crystal psyche has been dealt a blow too strong.

It's because he's just doing what he's been told to do; it is not need that shows itself.

It is _not_ need.

Or so he tells himself, but Kakashi knows the truth.

Easier to believe he has no weakness. Easier to believe he does not need. That he does not want or feel or breathe like anyone else, hunger and crave and long like anyone else, when he is starved of emotion and contact with the living world where he rightfully belongs, with the sun on his skin and a smile on his face, and his eyes turned to the sound of children’s laughter.

Men like Umino Iruka don’t last long in the endless night of facelessness, if only because they do not belong. They were never meant to lose themselves. Never meant to have their dreams put out the way they have to put out others. And when you are always putting out dreams and the dreamer, it is difficult to dream for yourself. Difficult to believe you have any right to dream of anything but endings. Or have the ability to want, to need when you’re starved.

(They starve you until you no longer feel hunger, if only because it is all that you can feel: the vastness of the ache and an absence that does not fill, but hollows you out.)

Iruka kisses like a man so starved he no longer understands the meaning of hunger or the concept of need -- desperately hot open-mouthed kisses that has Kakashi opening his own mouth, tongue slicking against Iruka’s as his body relaxes, molds against the front of Iruka’s body. Kakashi allows Iruka to direct their motions, because he has known what it was like to be hungry. To lose yourself in that hunger, which eats you until you are nothing but flesh and bone and eyes always turned outwards so you don’t have to see the horror of what’s beneath the surface.

But there comes a point a time that even if you close your eyes or even if it's always turned outwards, you can no longer accept the horror. Because it's not just within where the corrosion thrives, where the smell of rust and decay and age is strong. It is everywhere around you, in the warmth of flesh that you feel under your fingertips when you dig fingers into a sturdy vest, damage the zipper when it is ripped apart to get it off those broad shoulders, like how your blade now must cut through what it is supposed to cut through, tear at flesh and tendons and bone. It's the motions of your hands that have been forced to forget how to caress, how to guide, but instead now reap destruction.

The spread of decay of the self no longer remains within, but is channeled through the palm of Iruka’s hands when he rakes  fingers down against pressure points and fabric, and his teeth sink against the delicate hollow of Kakashi’s throat, where it'd be so easy, so simple, to sever an artery and end his life, teeth digging into fabric to rip it off his neck, a savage act of a rabid animal, digging deep, demanding, leaving red marks in its wake, fingers wrapping around his neck to hold him tight.

(Or holding onto him -- it's hard to tell now, isn't it?)

Iruka doesn't realize what he's doing, doesn't think when he forcefully digs his shoulders against the wall, to use as a pivotal force to push Kakashi back, backwards and away from him and the wall, towards the floor.

He doesn't even leave him there because Iruka is following after him, chasing after the cool and bittersweet taste of mint and whisky, after the face that is barely shown to the world. Somewhere at the back of his mind, in the grave of silence and pitch-black of twilight, once upon a time, Iruka would have blushed at the sight, would have stared at it in admiration and awe, would have paused for a moment to just stare at the rare opportunity.

It's what one does when they live, they take a pause in their busy routine to look at what's around them.

Iruka doesn't stare, but he does pause.

Iruka doesn't know how he's gone from holding Kakashi by the shoulders to around his neck, his throat.

The hesitation, that brief pause, it's what makes him imperfect.

It's what makes him human, Kakashi thinks.

What puts the flare of something living again in his eyes, something breathless and wanting and confused all at once, like the look of a man who's just come back to life, been wrenched up from icy depths where he had been submerged for so long he had forgotten what it was like to breathe. Until he breaks to the surface and gasps, feels the burning rush of life pouring in, filling up his lungs and his chest. It's so wonderful it hurts as much as when it was taken. Beautiful, that visceral expression, the raw feel that stabs through Kakashi too, just looking up at it with his own breath caught in a throat held prisoner by hands that do not shake.

Maybe it was the look, or just the taste of it that made his body lax and easy to manipulate, even when he felt a flare of chakra that should _never_ be directed at a comrade, and the vicious press of fingers against his pulse; the sudden vertigo of falling, followed by the sharpness of a floor meeting his shoulderblades.

Kakashi looks up at Iruka, meeting his gaze straight on, with both eyes, tilting up his chin slightly, as though to encourage the fingers wrapped around his neck that are filled with a kind of intent that is anything but killing, but just as dangerous and sharp, except for the need. Or maybe it's the need that's more dangerous.

For a moment he watches Iruka, observes the way his chakra flares violent and unsure inside his body, then he closes his left eye and lets a hand glide up one of Iruka's thighs, giving it a squeeze, relinquishing control to him.

The problem with relinquishing control to Iruka though, is that if it isn't in the person's nature to take control of things, then it is useless. Iruka's throat throbs with sudden dryness, scratchy like sandpaper, rubbing on sore lacerations hidden under the skin from where he had clawed at himself from the inside, to silence what should be silenced, to keep things under control because he has to be under control. Raw and painful because here's a comrade, someone respectable lying beneath him, so still and so willing to give himself, that it scares Iruka.

The willingness of it. The fact that it is being given to him when really, Iruka hasn't been on the receiving end of anything. Not since he had been asked to rise up the ranks. Forced to rise.

The pause stretches, so eternal that it is most definitely deadly. It makes Iruka's eyes widen just a fraction, pupils dilating to absorb more light, absorb more information and the picture before him: chiseled chin and jawline, sharp features and a scar cutting against a lip. He had tasted that scar, or so he thinks, Iruka isn't sure but if he had the choice, he thinks... if he had the choice, he thinks he would take his time in kissing this man. He would go slower, maybe, feel the texture of that scar under his tongue, relish the cool taste of mint and taste the scent of grass, open forests and sunlight filtering through lush tree tops. He thinks... he would like to feel the coarse strands, such an unnatural color, through his fingers, feel the beat of Kakashi's pulse under his lips and fingers where they will splay widely, slowly, a caress and not an almost-vice grip like the one he has on Kakashi right now.

Iruka thinks maybe, if he were to 'date' Kakashi, he would like to have had dinner, share a few drinks and savor the flavor, maybe even talk a little more as opposed to the two to three sentence exchange they had earlier. He would have liked to hear what Kakashi may have wanted to say. Listen to him...

Iruka thinks.

And that is the problem.

It is the thinking and the consideration for others that makes him swallow past the scratchy wounds on the inside of his throat, his fingers going slack. Because, _this is not right..._

“What is your idea of a good date, Kakashi-san?” Iruka asks instead, at a total loss, torn between following a command and what little of his humanity and personality is left.

“Well... I don't exactly date.” Kakashi admits after a moment, his voice a little thick as his thumb idly strokes against the side of Iruka's thigh. Dating means beginnings, and all Kakashi has ever really known is endings. Easier to not hold on when there is no one to hold onto.

“Dating's a little too complicated for someone like me.” He murmurs, hand traveling up to Iruka's hip. “But I suppose you can say I like leaving anyone I see... satisfied.”

“Oh…” It comes out almost surprised. Iruka knows a lot of beginnings but their endings come quickly, or too painfully, like a giant shuriken to the back. They always scar and  leave their mark and he'll have to carry it with him till the day he actually does drop dead. The pause is longer now, because the truth is, it isn't Iruka's nature to push people in to things. He's asked to date, but what is 'dating' when the terms aren't clear? When it is but a vague command, open to interpretation?

“Would you like to?” Iruka's hands shift just a little bit, unsure, like the slight flick of his gaze to the side before he continues to stare at the gray eye beneath him. “Date me.” He adds after a beat, making it clear.

I don't date, Kakashi almost says, but something in Iruka's gaze stops him, makes him pause as he studies him, then slowly sits up, one hand curling around the back of Iruka's neck, fingers brushing at the short hairs at the nape in something like a gentle caress.

“Why don't you tell me what you want, instead?” He murmurs, nose brushing against Iruka's, as he leans in to kiss him again.

Except Iruka turns his lips away briefly, almost shying away from the kiss as he speaks.

“Clearer terms.”

Clearer terms means boundaries. Boundaries means safety. Safety means less chances of him hurting anyone or him getting hurt (but that isn't supposed to matter because people like him, like Kakashi, aren't supposed to feel hurt. How is that possible when they're still human, though?) No one getting hurt means everyone can function without any problems.

Iruka doesn't want any problems. He just wants things to succeed and for him to do a good job.

“If you date me, if I date you…”

Except even when he does shy away from the kiss, the warmth on his cheeks intensifies, crawls down to his neck without his control, leans forward to brush against Kakashi's own cheek as his eyes stare at the far wall of his sparse living room.

“If I date you, it means sharing meals. It means spending time with each other -- fucking, talking, staring at things. It will fulfill the purpose of the program... and…”

If I date you, I can play the role of giving a shit about another person, about taking care of you. Holding you or onto you wouldn't make me hesitate because I don't know what to do, rather I can be sure because that is what is supposed to happen and like how normal dates go -- or how I think normal dates go -- it can end well or bad. But wouldn't that fulfill the purpose of dating? Wouldn't we both be doing a good job? Not disappoint our Hokage?

Iruka's tone is nonchalant, stating terms, like reading off a manual. But it gets quieter, fades around the edges of each syllable, because he has no idea what he's even doing anymore. Dating had never been this _hard,_ before.

“If it ends badly, then it ends badly. If it ends well, I'll take care of you... would you like that?”

No, Kakashi almost says, with one eye on Iruka and a hand on his waist. No, I would not like that. Holding on isn’t something I do, not to someone living, and certainly not in the capacity that you want. Holding hands and laughing and talking, building a home together -- the kind of thing in a fairy tale romance, that thing people dream of, is not possible. Love is for the living, for those who call their lives their own, who have not lost count of how many times they have had to let go. The only security that exists at all is never the beginning or the middle. It’s the ending that counts, the ending that lasts, and the ending that it all comes down to. And I have had too many endings, so much that sometimes, I think they’re all I have left.

I don’t want to start a thing that will only end, that can never last, when forever is a concept as thin as glory on a battlefield.

No, he thinks. No. Opens his mouth to say it, but stops, because there’s something so vulnerable and desperate and terrified in Iruka’s expression. As though if Kakashi opens his mouth to say no, it might just extinguish that last tiny glimmer of something like hope there in his gaze. And Kakashi is starting to slowly realize that there is a reason why they were paired together like this.

It was calculated, the selection. Strategic, really.

Because there is something in Iruka that Kakashi recognizes, that makes something within him twist sharply when he realizes just what it is: the shadow of the past of what he could not save. The dying flame of hope. Of dreams.  

He could just about kill Tsunade for this, because realization enough stops his mouth from forming no.

“I’ve never... done something like this before.” He says instead, voice quiet and uncertain, like his expression as he meets Iruka’s gaze.

Iruka almost smiles. _Almost._ Me neither, forms at the tip of his tongue. It remains buried in the prison of his throat, and instead, his palm does the talking, moving up to press against one side of Kakashi's face, thumb brushing over the scar cutting across the eye.

Iruka's never had any endings. He's had too many beginnings and most of them pause in the middle, where they cripple and freeze because the path forward had been obscured. Because those that did matter end up frozen in prison, bound by insanity and their greed. Those that do matter are still growing, far from his reach, Iruka's role completed. Because even if there had been an ending, Iruka had known back then how to keep moving forward and see the ending as just the beginning to something new, something greater. Where sacrifices made and losses suffered had been morphed and twisted so much that it looked like the beginning. Others have endings, and Iruka simply watches.

Always watching.

When it comes to himself, he is his harshest judge, his toughest instructor, his most cruel punisher. Maybe that's why they picked him for ANBU, knowing his capacity to give and protect, to prevent others from joining the rigid program where one loses themselves completely. Perhaps that is why he has survived so far, intact compared to many, and yet he's probably the most lost of the lot.

“It's okay.” The feel of coarse hair against Iruka’s palm is foreign and welcoming against his skin. Kakashi is a hook with bait; one that Iruka has bitten hard into and is incapable of escaping.

(If this agreement works out, if you actually start to be with him, under the pretense of an assignment your Hokage has given you, do you honestly think that this will save you? That by pretending to have a life outside of the current one you're in, you'll be able to be normal again?)

“It'll work out if it will, right? You wouldn’t have to go on blind dates anymore…” Iruka’s voice is thicker; perhaps he is telling himself that, or telling Kakashi. He is not sure of himself; he is only sure of the feel of the stubble against his palm, the smooth texture of the scar cutting against Kakashi’s lip under his thumb. That is all.

It’s the uncertainty that gets Kakashi, too. That makes him stop, wonder at what he’s supposed to say when he’s got a knot all caught up in his throat which leeches the heat out of his stomach into his chest, like a breath of burning smoke.

He studies Iruka’s open expression, reading the quiet want in his eyes, the fear that tightens his jaw and the corners of eyes cut out in a mask of calm they’d stitched onto the surface of his face. Where, underneath, he’s all fire and too much heat, contained within a body that only just barely manages to hold it all in. But Kakashi can feel it, thrumming under his fingertips. Feel him, trembling on a faultline on the verge of cracking him in two and swallowing up the fiery part of him, which would fall into a deep, dark abyss never to be seen again, or felt.

Kakashi slides his hand from where it was resting along the back of Iruka’s neck to cup his face, tentatively tracing the shape of his jaw and the bone just under his eye with his thumb and palm. Feeling what it might be like to take him as more than just another one-night stand or unattached understanding.

“I might just break your heart.” He murmurs, and it isn’t clear if it’s meant to be a joke, even as he contemplatively traces the curve of Iruka’s mouth with a gentle swipe of thumb.

“You won't.” Iruka's gaze falls to the curve of Kakashi's wrist, watches the tendons flex under the glove, follows the lines of muscle down to the folded edge of his sleeve, where pale skin disappears under the weight of his uniform; it's like reality hidden under a blanket, a face underneath a mask. It's not just what they all wear, this armor, because it has become so much a part of them that it's hard to know where flesh begins and where duty ends. It's hard to tell if there is still something human under the armor and the mask.

For a moment, Iruka feels bitterness claw in his chest, tastes it in the swipe of Kakashi's thumb against his lip. I might just break your heart, Kakashi says.

In the back of his head, Iruka would like to think that it's a nice gesture to be warned. But what he thinks of now doesn't match up to what he would have thought of if he had the choice. Choice isn't present even if humans want to be able to make them. That’s the funny thing with the psyche. It will create layers upon layers and force your mind to think that you’ve made a choice when you haven't, or force the mind to think you didn't make a choice, except you have. It becomes difficult to tell where one begins and where one ends, if it even begins or ends.

Kakashi's arm is thicker than his, and Iruka knows that the skin will continue on to scars. Scars that sits like another of layer of armor on his skin.

(When will it end?)

“You can't break something that you don't have.” Iruka meets Kakashi's gaze and the smile is on his face once more, tight around the corners of his lips. This is simply a beneficial arrangement. Don't make it more than what it really is, he tells himself.

“Well,” Kakashi begins lightly, the gentle caress gliding down to the dip just under Iruka’s Adam’s apple, fingers lightly spreading to press just over the ridges of his collarbone in a touch that seems innocent at first, but quickly turns into something else entirely when, in one swift movement, Kakashi has reversed their positions, holding Iruka down on the ground with a knee pressed between his legs and a hand positioned just under his throat.  

And just before he closes the space between them with a kiss vicious enough to bruise, he whispers, “In that case, I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

Except it matters more than Kakashi will ever know, or realize.

It'll matter more than Iruka himself will ever know, or realize.

Iruka's hands are on Kakashi's chest, pushing against the fabric of his shirt, smoothing the wrinkles out, feeling the curve of the muscles and their shift under palms that spread, follows the coursing heat under skin and muscle. He doesn't fight Kakashi, doesn't argue, settles well in his role of being a good date, a good companion in bed, in this.

He hums deep in his throat, curves his fingers under the hem of Kakashi's shirt, urging him to take it off so he can get to the rest of him, feel more what lies underneath all the layers of clothing. If he looks as fascinating as he does under the mask.

It's funny, this act between them. Fun, even. The thrill of them lying there in the middle of his apartment hallway, young and drunk on something, or maybe it’s just him; Iruka's lips curve around the corners a little in amusement, under the savageness of Kakashi's kiss.

There is nothing gentle, nothing tender in this.

Nothing loving or slow about it.

Kakashi’s kiss is as violent as the sudden rip of fabric under his hands, the press of his knee against Iruka’s clothed cock moving with focused intent. He tells himself and Iruka too, that it doesn’t matter if only because he knows it’ll matter too much -- and that’s the problem, isn’t it. That it matters even when he doesn’t want it to at all, even when he tells himself it won’t, that this is just skin and flesh and a mouth against his own. It didn’t matter when he was sixteen years old, held down with a hand at the back of his throat on his hands and knees, mud filling up his mouth and pressed between his teeth, something so hard and vicious splitting him apart. The pleasure was almost as good as the pain, and Kakashi was never really sure what it was that kept him sane in the end: the fucking or the violence of the taking.

He let himself be broken down to pieces, if only so he could gather himself up in the morning. Put himself back together into the semblance of something like a man who was not really a man because he was a weapon, the blade that plunged into the neck and severed the carotid; the hands that broke bone and flesh and screamed lightning through the still-beating chests of men whose faces swam before his eyes until all he could see before him were all the lives he had taken.

He doesn’t think Iruka is quite so broken, still can see what’s before him and hasn’t lost himself to the emptiness of the violence. To the futility of having any agency over one’s life. But this moment, this act, and what they share between them -- they can have some control over that. Can claim something of their own in the splitting apart and joining of bodies.

Kakashi works his way down Iruka’s body, stripping off his shirt in the process as his hands tug at Iruka’s pants, squeezing at Iruka’s cock through the thick fabric as he sucks and licks and nips at the tender skin just above his waistband. Iruka smells like warm earth and sharp metal, but underneath it all is something sweet, something Kakashi wants to uncover and pull screaming to the surface.  

What comes to the surface is the arch of a spine, of fingers rustling against cloth and hair, and with it the soft pitch of a whimper that is ripped out of Iruka, taken by hands that dig in to him, rip him wide open, expose him to the world, sharper lines now than the years that had passed, more defined, harder, more scarred, not quite as perfect anymore.

They always do -- rip him wide open and he never fights it. There is never a need to, because when you interact with one of your own, you have to give them everything that you can; it's the only way to justify that you are still human. To feel. And if there's one thing you're good at, it's feeling.

You feel when you look away from eyes that look at you with too much hope, when former students walk up to you and ask why you aren't teaching in the academy anymore, during those days when you walk the streets of the village you serve and protect. You feel too much when you wipe out towns, take lives, especially the innocent and the young. You feel too much when you walk into your barely recognizable apartment, and feel even more when you look in the mirror and see the bone white mask and the red and black lines that define it. You feel the churn and disgust when you sink the blades of your short swords into an enemy, into a body (they're not always enemies), and for days, you'll hear the squelch and gurgle of lungs.

Feeling isn't a bad thing -- quite the opposite. Iruka supposes it's a good thing that he still feels, still gets sick when he walks into the safety of his bathroom, still get queasy when he hears water boil because it sounds too much like lung damage sometimes. It's good that he still has enough conscience; he's not that broken.

Yet.

But sometimes, feeling too much is too dangerous.

Dangerous because his fingers curl around Kakashi's shoulders to hold on. Fingers that know nothing else but to hold on, and will always hold on because letting go is a foreign concept. Like how sometimes, when he sees a ripened orange in a market, his fingers wrap around the rind slowly, carpels molding against the round shape, feeling the weight in his palm and tasting the flavor at the tip of his tongue except it's simply a distant memory, the sweetness of it. Like everything else, really.

Soon, this too will just be a memory, the feel of Kakashi's tongue against his navel, the taste of mint and whiskey that is still strong in his mouth -- it'll fade, and with it, the bruises Kakashi's teeth and hands leave behind. And Iruka will be left with feeling too much, the taste but a quiet whisper against his lips.

He feels too much.

So much, that his arousal is thick and full under the confines of his pants, responding willingly to Kakashi's hands, leaping at it, curving against it, molding into his palm, wet and dripping and smearing, fitting in just so and with it, Iruka's breaths that Kakashi steals away with his ruthless ministrations of ripping him wide open.

The difference is, the one thing that not even severe training has managed to take away from him is that Iruka hands everything willingly; offers it all, a part of him. And closes his eyes. “ _Hmnn…_ ”

But Kakashi has taken too much already. Has spent his entire life taking. Lives, mostly.

It comes as no surprise that he has been paired with another shinobi who has only ever given. Has never properly taken anything for himself. Maybe Kakashi has been giving all this time too, because his taking was never for himself, except for the one thing he took that burns a constant reminder in his left eye, a taking he has spent remembering for the past eighteen years of his life. So Kakashi does not take, because what Iruka needs isn’t to be taken. Isn’t to give even more of himself when he does not have anything left to give.

He strokes Iruka until he’s slick and wet, running glossy over the leather of his gloves and the creases of his fingers, then grabs hold of his arm, tugging him up.  

“Get up,” He says, still stroking Iruka’s cock, directing him up to his feet to lean against the wall. And here, on his knees, he parts his lips and takes him into his mouth, tongue roughly gliding over the glossy, velvety head in hungry strokes, humming softly as he sloppily kisses the tip, fingers continuing to glide from the root up to his mouth. He does this for Iruka because this isn’t about what Kakashi needs. Isn’t about what he desires. This is not about what he can take, but what he can give. What small bit of comfort he can provide, an anchor to a reality denied to a man who is told every day he is not one. This is not about his own body, the cock that throbs hard in his pants or the heat at the base of his stomach, but about reminding Iruka his body is his own, that he can still feel like anyone else and want and need like anyone else, and hunger and crave for touch and pleasure and know what it is like to live.

If only for a moment.

Iruka barely has enough time to think between his shoulder blades slamming into the wall and his fingers reaching to fist in Kakashi's hair, to hold onto something, keep his feet grounded because it is too much. The feel of that velvety mouth and brush of tongue against flesh twitches against the attention, precum slathering against lips and leather.

And through it all, Iruka bites his lower lip, chews down hard on it and watches. Watches how Kakashi makes a mess between his legs, how he devours his cock and traces the lines of his arousal. He watches, as the scar around the corner of his lip moves with the motion as opposed to against it, watches how his pale complexion takes on a vague red tinge -- barely even there -- from the arousal that Iruka can feel more than smell or see. He watches, how Kakashi's throat hollows and shifts when he hums, tendons pulling and bulging briefly, going the way down his shoulders, crawling between his shoulder blades. Fluid, strong.

_Beautiful._

Iruka stares, with both eyes wide open, glassy from the heat and the moans that are forced to be quiet, if only because Iruka must always be quiet, even in this. But it's hard to be quiet when one isn't used to it, when one feels too much. So Iruka's hands tighten in Kakashi's hair, feels the strain in his knuckles that go white, his other hand coming up to his teeth, biting down on a fist to keep everything in, when everything just wants to come out.

Kakashi is so fucking beautiful like this.

And somewhere in the back of Iruka's mind, when he barely suppresses the whimper that bubbles out of his throat, soft as a sigh, and trembling all the way down to his knees and flushing his cheeks and chest and stomach red, Iruka wonders: why is he doing this?

Iruka doesn’t know how to let go, or what to do just yet; he forgets. And simply just holds on, pushes the back of his head until the knot of his ponytail digs into the back of his skull, dilated pupils cast down, hooded behind damp lashes and glistening skin because it’s too much. Too hot.

Too much.

(What does one give back to something like this? When pride and honor and title outranks everything that you’re worth and he kneels before you, with you in his hands and mouth? Willingly. What do you give in return?)

His breath leaves him in heavy gasps, through glistening and bruised lips. Lips that form words that remain silent, lips that pull back to grimace when teeth grit when he feels Kakashi’s fingers touch the sensitive base of his cock, put pressure, tongue that darts out against the feeling of dryness on the tiers of his lips, wets it, when Kakashi’s tongue flicks over the head of his cock. Lips that open to say _Kakashi_ except the syllables don’t quite form, and remains hidden behind the grit of teeth and the fist that covers it.

Kakashi looks up at him and sees just what he holds in.

Knows it far too well.

_Remembers._

It’s like this:

You think you can hold it all in, swallow down every sound, hold it there in your larynx, or at the base of your throat. Maybe if you swallow it all down, you can swallow down the reality, because this is not really happening. You are not really feeling. You are not ready to feel yet so you hold down your breath and your voice and the tremors that threaten to give you away, hold yourself very still, like you do when you stand in the shadows to wait for the kill. Maybe you do not even remember how to open your mouth to let the sound out, to let what you contain, the pleasure that almost fills you to bursting, to take you over. Still so desperate, terrified, to lose control.

You are not ready, were not ready, for this moment.

But it comes, anyway.

With every stroke of the tongue and inch of hard flesh down his throat, Kakashi remembers. If only because he can’t forget, what it felt like -- the horror of it, of wanting so desperately to let go but being unable to do anything else but hold onto the absence, that emptiness they define you with. Until you believe this is all you have left. So you hold on, not knowing what lies beyond the absence, beyond the emptiness, other than death. And you are not ready to die, even if you are not really alive.

It wasn’t [until he was nineteen that Kakashi finally rediscovered what it meant to breathe](http://archiveofourown.org/works/426253), how desire could taste when it wasn’t laced through with pain; that sex was more than just an act, more than a moment of violence, of blood and spit and come that he needed in order to finish breaking what was already so damaged and broken just so he could collect himself together after what gave him the only reminder that he was even alive.

He does not know how else to give this gift to Iruka, other than with his body and his mouth, slowly fucking him with his throat, taking him all the way down, lips stretching to accommodate the width, lewd sucking sounds leaving him each time he takes him in. Kakashi braces Iruka with one hand holding his hip and the other massaging the sensitive sac between his legs, the actions growing slower and more languid, tender like the touch of a lover, and not a shinobi who might as well be a stranger in the hallway of an apartment he has barely stepped three feet in. He takes his time with this act, takes care in its delivery, watching Iruka’s expression through his lashes as he coaxes him away from one ledge to another, from a fall that would break him to one that would release him, wanting to hear what he sounds like when he’s rediscovered his voice.

(It’s painful, watching him have to swallow it down, holding it all in and letting it slowly eat him alive.)

Kakashi pulls out to suck and lick at the head, gasping softly around Iruka’s ruddy cock, gossamer strands of thick saliva and precum dripping down his chin as he looks up, splays the hand gripping his hip against his abdomen slowly.

“It’s okay. Let go.” And it almost sounds like a quiet plea, just before Kakashi opens his mouth once more and takes Iruka all the way in.

Letting go of one's self is never easy. It becomes duty to turn to something as hard as stone, one that knows no fault, knows no weakness. When shinobi are forced to know nothing but words written in a rule book, fashioned to turn them into a perfect weapons, functioning things without personalities -- it cannot be called living. You can make excuses, you can come up with reasons to justify what you are supposed to be, what you were ordered to become; you can look at it from an angle that will prevent you from tipping over the precarious edge that'll shatter you to pieces, and maybe if you're lucky, you might just get to see a couple more tomorrows.

But this is what happens instead:

The hips under Kakashi's palm shift, undulate against the hot mouth and with it flows the trembling sigh that brushes against wet lips, chin tipping to the ceiling and glassy irises staring at the flickering hallway light, at the vague reflection of his own face in the dim room twisted to something so human, so needy and so wanting, where the locks from his ponytail have fallen loose, where they stick and curve against his cheekbone and neck, flushed from the heat of Kakashi's mouth, the attention his superior directs towards him, the care that is so palpable in the rough feel of leather, and the soft velvety sensation of his tongue.

When Kakashi isn't really supposed to be considerate because there really isn't anything remotely solicitous in ANBU. They are not meant to care, not meant to feel, not meant to shed the hard mask and show the human face beneath, where lips quiver and soft sounds that manage to escape the cage of his larynx, hands tightening even more in the thick strands, against the back of Kakashi's skull as he fucks that mouth, pushes into it, pulls out, hears the risqué sounds of his cock, so loud in his ears that it's all Iruka can hear. All he wants to hear. Harder, pushing and pulling, ruthless and lost in the act of letting go, the sounds that spill from his mouth getting louder, bolder, throaty and _god, it feels so good_  and _don’t stop_ and _please_.

The heat that slams through Iruka makes his shoulder blades dig harder against the wall, makes his knees shake and his cock twitch because Kakashi's mouth doesn't just undo him, it makes him fall apart completely and he doesn't even realize it, thinking it’s just all part of their little arrangement.

“ _Ha-ahhh_ \-- !”

Ribbons of white shoot out from the tip, thick and generous. Iruka can't remember the last time he's done something like this, when he's closed himself off completely from anything remotely human, even the act of sex itself. When sex is about feeling and not just a mechanical thing shared between two individuals to get off a high from a mission, or an act to get an assignment done.

This is _real_.

This is what it's supposed to _feel_ like.

Hot and messy and intense that Iruka's field of vision turns white for a moment. His reflection on the ceiling lamp fades and his head turns to the side immediately, hides the human face he makes because it's the only thing he can do, tuck it away from a person's direct field of vision, when it's still there.

All of it, there.

And it is beautiful, Kakashi thinks.

Breathtaking, even, to see the living part, the human part flare with such sudden intensity, hot and needy and grasping for life, for that which he has been denied, which had been stripped from him: the part that could feel, to breathe and need and want and fall to pieces when he is not alone, to let someone witness what he had buried so deep, he almost forgot it was even there. When it had been there all along.

Waiting.

For someone, or something to pry up the nails and release it.

Kakashi holds onto Iruka because Iruka has let go of himself, holds him steady with both hands and swallows, drinks him down, and braces him so he will not fall. On his knees, he drinks down what pours out, on his knees he swallows like a man praying before a god. But Iruka is not a god; he is only a man, and maybe that alone -- that very fact, of being human, of being alive, of allowing himself to remember what he had denied himself for so long -- maybe that deserves some worship.

Maybe this is an act of grace.

Or mercy.

And maybe this moment, this act of deliverance, is as much for Kakashi as it is for Iruka.

Kakashi releases Iruka from his mouth when he feels it -- the shakes that go through the chuunin’s body, the way his knees crumple as they give out and his hands start to scrabble for purchase against Kakashi’s shoulders, as though he’s terrified of what might happen if he lets go. His eyes are wide, something wild filling them up. Something raw and honest and too alive.

“Kakashi--” he starts, voice a ragged gasp, and it’s as much an apology as it is a plea.

“It’s okay,” Kakashi says, as he catches Iruka when he falls. “I won’t let you go. I promise.”

Iruka closes his eyes and inhales, and breathes in Kakashi.  

It’s the first real breath he’s had in years.

\---

_Fin_

 


End file.
